College Hockey Update:  Last weekend only three of the top twelve teams came out with sweeps, and two of the remaining teams had a pretty rough weekend.  Minnesota retained the #1 ranking with its sweep of Ohio State, and received all votes for the #1 ranking.  Boston College moved up a couple of slots on its wins over Boston University and Maine.  BC’s game against BU (a team that was on the ropes in December, was through the ropes and in the audience a couple of weeks ago, and is at the exit doors now) was pretty much a blowout , with BC leading 3-1 after the second, and 5-2 midway through the third, but BU somehow found a way to get back into the game with two goals in the next seven minutes, to make it 5-4; with forty seconds left, BU added and extra attacker, but only eighteen seconds later BC found the empty net and made the final 6-4.

Union College swept New Hampshire and jumped up a few slots to the #3 ranking — Union has reached the #3 ranking in the past, but never higher, so it is clearly quite a year for them.  Quinnipiac split with Merrimack, but managed to rise up a spot to the #4 ranking because of what happened to the next two teams here.  St. Cloud State had a rough go as it hosted Western Michigan and eked out a high scoring tie, and then losing the shootout (after St. Cloud led 3-1 after one) Friday night, and then lost a stingy low-scoring affair to the Broncos Saturday night; St. Cloud State dropped a couple of spots to the #5 ranking.  Ferris State took a trip to Mankato State that was no fun for them as Ferris State was spanked Friday night, and then edged out Saturday night; the two losses dropped Ferris State several rungs to the #6 ranking.

Providence managed a tie and a win against Colorado College, and retained the #7 ranking, and UMass-Lowell tied Maine and beat Boston University, lifting Lowell up a couple to the #8 ranking.  Last week I wrote that the Clarkson/Yale game might be a big game for both teams, as Clarkson had slid down in the rankings out of the top twelve, and Yale had recently been on a rise in upper echelons of the rankings — well, maybe I was right.  In Friday night’s game between the two, Clarkson edged out Yale for the win; Yale beat St. Lawrence on Saturday night, and Saturday night Clarkson went on to beat Brown.  Yale dropped down a couple of notches to the #10 ranking, and Clarkson moved up a spot to #13.  Northeastern was under quite an attack from Vermont, and split the weekend with them.  Friday night Northeastern goalie Clay Witt stopped 46 of 48 shots on goal in his teams’ win, and Saturday night was not as successful, as he stopped 28 of 32 shots, and Northeastern was soundly beaten.  What a weekend for him, stopping 74 of 80 shots on goal; Northeastern held onto the #11 ranking on the weekend.  Cornell beat Harvard, then tied Dartmouth, retaining the #12 ranking, and Wisconsin held at #9 on an idle weekend.

This weekend presents a couple of great top twelve matchups.  First, Minnesota will attempt to install their copy, the “Northstar College Cup,” of Boston’s long-running, in-season Beanpot Tournament (the “Championshp of Boston”), with a hitch — they don’t have four teams in/around the same city, and they have five in the state.  The solution is to play four of the teams each year, rotating one of them out — it will be interesting to see if the University of Minnesota is ever rotated out (the “tournament” will also be played on consecutive nights instead of the games being one week apart).  This weekend one of the opening games at the Excel Center in St. Paul should be a screamer, with #1 Minnesota taking on #5 St. Cloud State.  Saturday night the winner will play the winner of Friday’s Mankato/Minnesota-Duluth game, and Friday’s losing teams face off in the consolation game Saturday night.  Another great matchup this weekend is #7 Providence and #8 UMass-Lowell playing a pair at Providence tonight — in about three and half hours, and at Lowell Saturday night.

Ok, the enlightened College Hockey Update reader already knows that there is no such animal as a golden gopher, and that Minnesota is known as the Gopher State not because of an affinity for gophers, but because of a group of determined Minnesotans who were “digging” for money for a new railroad.  So, how about Wisconsin, the Badger State?  Well, it’s sort of a similar story.  Early Wisconsinites of the 1820’s who were lead miners would initially live in the mines with their families until such time as they could build or arrange for above ground housing (can’t imagine that living in and around lead twenty-four hours per day was too healthy . . . . . ).  Since these folks were living underground, they were referred to as “badgers.”  The name stuck and became the nickname for the state, and therefore of the University of Wisconsin, which was founded in 1848.  What a big school this is — it has 43,000 students, 29,000 of whom are undergraduates.  It is located on a 933 acre campus in Madison, the capitol of the state with a population of 240,000, and the key town in a population area of 570,000.  Madison was founded in 1836 as the capitol of the Territory of Wisconsin and it sits on an isthmus between two lakes, Mendota and Menona; it was named for President James Madison, and it has thirty-nine streets named after the other signers of the U.S. Constitution.  Wisconsin boasts a couple of major scientific discoveries by one of its professors, Elmer McCollum, namely Vitamin A in 1913, and Vitamin B in 1916.  Another professor, Harry Steenbrock, invented the process of adding Vitamin D to milk — irradiating with ultraviolet light.  And a couple of guys from Texas were in the band The Ardells at the University in the early sixties — Steve Miller started the band and was joined a year later by his childhood buddy Boz Scaggs; the two stayed together through Miller’s first two albums in 1968.

Hockey first started at the University in 1922, but was discontinued in 1935; it was reintroduced in 1963.  They have played at the Kohl Center (also used for UW basketball), which seats 15,000, since 1998; in 2006-07 Wisconsin had an average attendance of 14,430 for hockey games.  Wisconsin has won the NCAA Hockey Championship six times, in 1973, 77, and 81, when coached by Bob Johnson, father of ’77 team member Mark Johnson, who also played on the 1980 Olympic goal medal team, and who currently coaches the Wisconsin women’s hockey team, in 1983 and 1990, when coached by Jeff Sauer, and in 2006, when coached by current coach Mike Eaves, another member of the 1977 championship team.  Eaves has coached the team since the 2002-03 season, and has a lifetime record of 244-175-52.  In his first eleven seasons his teams had eight winning seasons and three losing seasons, had 28 wins in 2010, had 30 wins in 2010, won a WCHA Tournament title, made it to the NCAA tournament six times, and made it to the NCAA Championship game twice, in 2006 and 2010, winning it all in 2006.  The roster this season is loaded with experienced upper classmen, as it has nine seniors, seven juniors, four sophomores, and six freshmen.  All twenty-six of the players came from elite junior leagues; not one straight from high school.  And oh yeah, the name of their mascot is Buckingham U. Badger.  This weekend Wisconsin hosts Ohio State for two games.

This provides the top twelve teams, rankings, records, and last weekend’s results:

[table id=79 /]

That’s all for now.  Stay tuned, and go Terriers!

— Tom